College Confidential’s “Dean,” Sally Rubenstone, put together 25 of her best tips. Get your free copy of the "25 Tips from the Dean" eBook and get helpful advice on how to choose a college, get in, and pay for it: http://goo.gl/9zDJTM

Sorority w/ no house?

My campus has no greek houses. How does a sorority w no greek house work? Do you meet somewhere for meetings? Are there still parties? Do you still develop that friendship? Do you have to be an undergrad student or can you still be in one while in graduate school?

All I know is that you still have to rush (I don't see how that works either!).

Replies to: Sorority w/ no house?

There are many schools where this is the case, and a number of ways in which chapters work around it. At some schools, chapters are given wings of a dorm so that all the members may live in close proximity with one another, there's a lounge or meeting room for them to use, etc.

At other schools where this doesn't occur, the chapters simply make due with scheduling their meetings at members' houses or using meeting rooms at the Union or some other on or off campus location. Typically recruitment is done in various rooms in the union or a building on campus with multiple rooms of similar size.

Keep in mind that even on campuses where many of the chapters have houses, some chapters may not and they have to work around these issues as well.

At my school, all the sororities have a floor in a dorm and chapter rooms in the basement of the dorm. They're all in the same section of campus so rush is conducted in this area (you go around to the different dorms instead of different houses). Seems to work out alright for them, although there have been rumors of them getting houses in the relatively near future (2009-2010). Those rumors have been going around since I started in 2005 though, and probably before.

That's the excuse they use at Auburn too, about the brothel laws. No one could ever really figure out if they were true or not until our school paper had an article devoted to "College (and Auburn) Specific Urban Legends" where they debunked a bunch of things, that being one of them.

Here, none of the fraternities or sororities have official houses; some have unofficial houses that several members of the same group live in, but there aren't any ones officially recognized by the university. Usually recruitment events are on campus, and then the group will later determine where rush and brother/sister events will be.

Our school is the opposite in that all the sororities here have houses but the fraternities are getting slowly kicked off campus. When the fraternities don't have a house, they still have meetings, parties, etc. but just usually at an off-campus house.

In my son's fraternity, they don't have a house, but they have a suite on school grounds. The suite is where they hang out and have their meetings. They have a big screen TV, pool table, etc. in the suite. Parties are either in houses of members or in hotels, restaurants, etc that are rented out. They hire a bus to take them there. I actually like that there is no frat house, I think things are more thought out and under control that way.

Actually off-campus parties are less controlled. Greeks in university-owned housing are subject to investigations by campus police or university officials at any time, day or night. This is not the case when a GLO owns or rents property off campus. Formals are routinely held in nice restaurants or hotels with chartered buses whether or not there is housing.

As a member of a coed fraternity, I can say that yes, it is pretty much run the same way as a normal frat/sorority. Typically sororities/fraternities are limited to undergrad students. I know when members of our fraternity become graduate students they are then considered Alumni members. They can still join us at activities and such, but they are no longer Active members.

Helpful Links

About College Confidential

Welcome to the leading college-bound community on the Web!

Here you'll find hundreds of pages of articles about choosing a college, getting into the college you want, how to pay for it, and much more. You'll also find the Web's busiest discussion community related to college admissions, and our CampusVibe section!About Us